Production of vitamin B12 in recombinant Escherichia coli: An important step for heterologous production of structurally complex small molecules

Abstract

Vitamin B12 is one of the most complex small molecules acting as a co-factor in processes that are crucial to many living organisms. Vitamin B12 can be produced by fermentation of native bacterial producers with up to 10 000 kilogram commercial production of vitamin B12 annually [1]. Because native bacterial producers are not the usual industrial producer strains, many attempts have been made to heterologously produce vitamin B12 in non-native microbial hosts. Since the de novo biosynthesis of vitamin B12 involves 30 enzymemediated reactions, those efforts have been unsuccessful until the recent study made by Ko et al. [2], which is published in this issue of Biotechnology Journal.